Vine Trellis Orangeburg SC

Frame the front and back faces of the trellis (Photo 6). Align the beveled ends of the slats with the edges of the legs and drill pilot holes. Then drill out the holes in the slats so the screws slip through. Apply glue and assemble.

Vine Trellis

Vine Trellis

Before you set aside your push sticks and dust mask for the season, make something to enjoy all summer. This project takes only about a day to build, once you've got all the materials. It's designed for outdoor use—made from rot-resistant woods and assembled with weatherproof glue and rust-resistant fasteners. Protected with a finish or not, it will enhance your garden or deck for years to come.

Make any climbing plant happy with this 6-ft. tall, free-standing trellis. We used dadoes, glue and screws to fasten the slats because trellises take a beating each year when you tear off the old vines. We built our trellis from cypress, one of the longest-lasting outdoor woods. Ours was recycled from old water tanks and cost about $175. White oak, at $60, would also be a good choice.Marking the legs for the dadoes can be confusing, but if you follow our marking procedures (Photos 1 through 4), you can't mess up. Even with our easy-to-make jigs, routing 68 dadoes is noisy, dusty and tedious (Fig. B and Photo 5). But once they're done, the dadoes make assembly foolproof. There's only one angle to remember: Everything slopes 6 degrees.

You'll need an angled template, made with the miter gauge on your tablesaw, to make the dadoing jigs. You'll also need a router with a straight bit to cut the dadoes, and a drill with a slotted tip for all the screws. We used a jointer and planer to mill our parts to thickness, but they could also be ripped to size on a tablesaw. The slats are thin, so be sure to use a push stick.

How To Build It

1) Mill the legs (A) to thickness and cut them to length.

2) Mark the leg dadoes (Photos 1 through 4 ). The sides of the trellis are tapered, so the dadoes are angled.

3) Cut an 84-degree angled template, about 10-in. long and at least 4-in. wide. Use it to set the fence angle on the dadoing jigs (Fig. B).4) Dado the legs (Photo 5). One jig will slope the right direction for the 3/16-in. deep dadoes on one side of each leg. The mirror-image jig will be correct for the other side.

5) Mill slat material to thickness and rip it into lengths, slightly oversize in width. Then plane (or rip) the slats to fit the leg dadoes.

6) Cut the bottom and top slats (B through E) for all four sides to length, with a 6-degree bevel on both ends. You can cut the slats to length in pairs because opposite sides of the trellis are the same.

7) Frame the front and back faces of the trellis (Photo 6). Align the beveled ends of the slats with the edges of the legs and drill pilot holes. Then drill out the holes in the slats so the screws slip through. Apply glue and assemble.

8) Cut the internal slats (F) to fit, and fasten them, following the procedures in Steps 6 and 7.

9) Stand the assembled front and back faces back-to-back in an "A," and assemble the sides, following Steps 7 and 8.

Using a 3/16-in. slot-cutting bit, rout grooves for splines in all the stiles and rails (Photo 2, Fig. A, Parts F1-F3 and S1-S4). All the grooves have the same offset, a 5/16-in. lip at the front and a 1/4-in. lip at the back (Fig. A, Detail 3). The front frame stiles (F1) and the front side frame stiles (S1) receive two slots.